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Monday, December 10, 2012

The Fluoride Action Network (FAN) has recently
obtained the summary of a new Chinese study linking fluoride exposure to
reduced intelligence in
children. Incredibly, this is the36th
study to find an association between
fluoride and reduced intelligence.

Although FAN has yet to translate the full
study, a translation of the abstract reveals that the scientists not only
examined the neurological impact of fluoride in water, but also the neurological
impact of the total fluoride dose from all sources. According to the summary,
the children in the high-fluoride community (0.57 to 4.5 ppm) had an average of
8 less IQ points than children from the lower fluoride community (0.18 to 0.76
ppm). When the authors controlled for other sources of fluoride in the
children's diets, they found a significant "dose response" trend, meaning that
children with higher total daily intakes of fluoride tended to have lower IQs
than children with low fluoride intakes. The total daily doses ranged from 1 mg/day to 4+
mg/day -- a dose range that overlaps the doses that millions of American
children now regularly receive.

FAN obtained this study as part of its
ongoing translation project which monitors, accesses, and translates critical
studies from China and Russia that would otherwise never see the light of day in
the U.S. As attorney Michael Connett explains below, FAN's translation project has
already had a significant impact on the scientific debate, and we expect this
impact will continue to increase in the months
ahead.

FAN's Translation
Project

By Michael
Connett, JD

If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around,
does it make a sound? A similar question could once be asked about Chinese
research on fluoride toxicity: For decades, Chinese scientists published studies
on how fluoride impacts human health that -- because they were written in
Chinese and published in Chinese journals -- were completely unknown and ignored
by scientists in the U.S. and other fluoridating countries. In recent years,
however, FAN has taken unprecedented
steps to change this situation -- and in the
process, has helped to change the scientific and public debate on water
fluoridation. As someone who has been at the forefront of this effort, let me
take a second to explain some of the
background.

In 2007, I conducted a
comprehensive
search of several online Chinese databases to
find studies investigating fluoride's effect on the brain. Up until that time,
it was believed that only about 5 studies had ever investigated fluoride's
impact on IQ. It became apparent to me upon searching through the databases,
however, that many other IQ studies had been conducted that had never before
been cited in the western
literature.

At FAN, we take our job of broadening public awareness about
fluoride seriously. Believing that knowledge of these studies would draw much
needed attention to fluoride's adverse effects on the brain, FAN accessed,
translated, and published ten IQ studies in the 2008 volume of the journal
Fluoride. Although these studies had been published in China as far back
as 1989, they had almost entirely escaped the attention of western scientists.
Thanks to FAN's research, however, they had become available for all to
see.

One of FAN's guiding principles is that better
information produces better results; that the more the public knows about
fluoride, the wiser they will be in handling it in a safe and sensible manner.
We were very gratified, therefore, when a team of
Harvard
scientists -- in a highly
publicized review on fluoride and IQ earlier this year -- cited almost all of
FAN's IQ translations, and provided 8 links to the FAN webpage. When Harvard
scientists

publish a study in a leading environmental health
journal (Environmental Health Perspectives) and cite your organization's
research no less than 8 times, you know you're doing something
right!

The 2012
Translations

In the spring of this year, I decided to do
another comprehensive review of the Chinese databases to see if I could
find any additional studies on fluoride and IQ, as well as other effects. As
with the previous effort, it didn't take long to realize that there was still a
vast amount of research on fluoride's toxicity that had still not seen the light
of day in the western world. So, once again FAN began accessing and translating
these studies. In total, FAN accessed and translated eleven previously unknown
studies on IQ, ten of which reported a reduction in IQ from fluoride exposure.
All of these studies are now publicly
available on the FAN
website for all to see.